ROUSSEAU. 159 



tant Church. He soon resolved to remove this only 

 obstacle which stood in the way of his regaining them ; 

 and abjuring Romanism with as much reflection and 

 as much disinterestedness as he had formerly Calvinism, 

 he was once more a Protestant, and became a citizen 

 of Geneva. Among the reasons which chiefly influ- 

 enced him in not retiring thither for the rest of his life 

 was the near neighbourhood of Voltaire, whom he re- 

 garded as destroying the place by corrupting its inha- 

 bitants.* This was in 1754 ; while to all outward ap- 

 pearance he was bowing to the idol of the day, and 

 expressing his entire admiration of his genius. 



On the establishment of the ' Encyclopedic,' D'Alem- 

 bert and Diderot, with whom he was acquainted, en- 

 gaged him to write some articles ; and this increased 

 his intimacy with Diderot, whose habits were loose, 

 as well as introduced him to Diderot's friend Grimm, 

 a man of letters, in the service of the Duke of Saxe 

 Gotha, and employed by him for many years as a 

 kind of literary and philosophical Resident at Paris. 

 The letters which he wrote in that capacity, his de- 

 spatches, as it were, have been since published, and are 

 well known. When he came to Paris, being a man 

 of wit as well as letters, he was successful in society, 

 and became dissipated and even profligate in his man- 

 ners ; but he does not appear either to have indulged 

 in any vulgar excesses, or to have offended against the 

 conventional laws of honour which bind the polite 

 world. Rousseau always represents himself as his in- 

 troducer into the Parisian circles, and as having been 



* Conf., part ii. liv. 8. 



